


These Things We Call Empire

by bakerstreetchick22



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Dark, F/F, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), I Don't Even Know, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo has trauma, Kylo is lossing it, Post TLJ, The Force, just had an idea, might be hecking feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakerstreetchick22/pseuds/bakerstreetchick22
Summary: Kylo Ren has everything but her, and even the strongest fall without their keystone. Slipping into madness and with rivals on all sides Kylo will have to fight for his sanity- the throne- and for her.





	These Things We Call Empire

**Author's Note:**

> HI! 
> 
> This is kinda of experimental- I wanted to try an omnipresent point of view and some more reflective and darker themes. I wanted to explore some more of the trauma that I think Kylo has bottled up inside him- and the paranoia that he might now feel after being rejected by the only person who has ever been in his head. 
> 
> Enjoy the chapter

It was crushing, the mantle, the war, the ambition, the loss, everything. Kylo was alone. A great mass of clouds had arisen above the Dathomirian temple, and now churning, rain burst from them. The pour of the rain made the eves weep, and made the statues of the temple gardens gleam under the thunder’s light. The raindrops stitched patterns across the windows of the buildings and drummed the skylight that was over his shower in his apartment. His dark troubled eyes flickered as he watched the air swell above his steamy shower burst into white branches. Nothing had been gained because it had been reaped in its own time. All the seeds of his master had planted were coming to fruition, growing like a twisting vine between his thoughts, eating him from within. A husk ruler, simple puppet, a horn through which the First Order would blow the sounds of war. Kylo was where he was intended to be, and all of his efforts to escape this path were undone in trying to escape it. It was the will of the Force, the will of his master, and the will of the First Order. 

He waited for the boom that followed the forking light. His hands twisted around the circumference of his neck in the fog of the shower, the tips of his fingers grazing the flesh that covered the ache lurking in his spine. His pale white skin tensed, as the dark side’s infinite tendrils twisted within him. His eyes began drifting as the voices whispered in his mind. **“Special, dark, different, rare…”** Isolated! He thought as his face warped. The more he struggled the bigger the pit grew. The angrier he got, the more lost he felt. He was an animal mad because he was an animal: a beast- a wild thing- a thing not to be touched- something that couldn’t or shouldn’t feel reason. Expected to be gifted, but human? No. Swiftly a rhythm overcame his breathing, his heart beating like a drum. Lucid swells of pain and sensation drowned his reality. 

 

_Run! Run! Run! Rey’s very essence echoed subconsciously in his mind, as she darted through the dark city. Flashing lights flew by her as she ran through crooked streets. A labyrinth of chaotic sirens and explosions appeared in Kylo’s senses. He saw through her eyes. He heard through her ears. He inhabited her like a spirit. Shots rang through the air in her direction as she slunk into an alleyway. Tapping a button on her forearm, the blue light that was ringing her pilot helmet dimmed, and she blended into the night like a ghost._

_“Why are you here!” She mentally screamed at him._

_“You know why.”  
Her head spun as she glanced up at the pillar of fire and smoke rising over the buildings behind her. The detonation had taken out nearly half the block. An attached lump rose in his throat. _

_“Where are you?” He gasped, scanning the mental pathway trying to sense where she was._

_“No. You. Don’t.”_

 

Suddenly, there was nothing, just the blankness of his heartbeat and the scent of smoke. He began to burst inside. He listened for her, but it was silent. His only true companion was gone again, fighting on some strange world, against what he very well knew was his forces. He was alone. 

Kylo felt the surging of the demonic familiar voice in his brain. **“Face it.”** He fell back against the glass of the shower before sliding to the floor. **“Accept it.”** The mental shadow rang through his brain. **“Be dead to it.”** He looked upwards from the floor, but he saw nothing with his watery eyes. 

“No!” He cried reaching out with both arms into the force. A static pulse filled the air again, sending a shockwave through the force. 

 

_Caught off guard, Rey stumbled as she came back into his view._

_“Leave me alone!” She spat, ripping her staff off her back._

_“But you’re not alone.” She stopped in her tracks at his voice. “You never will be.”_

_She groaned in exasperation while striking open a storm drain and crawling in. As she closed the grate behind her an incredibly sour expression formed on her face._

_“The more you pursue me, the farther I away I will run.”_

_“One day you’ll tire.” He whispered in her ear._

_Sweat formed on her sunkissed forehead, as she clenched her fist._

_“Never!” She burst, pushing outwards with her hands, cracking the connection._

 

The shower’s heat pounded against his defeated body on the floor of the shower. He shook from the wretchedness- his weakness plaguing him. There was nothing he hated more than his own inability, his own lack of control in the shadow of her total control. She didn’t need him. She didn’t even want him. The infuriating purity that she flaunted in front of him was driving him slowly mad. His arms were still shaking from the effort he had exerted to maintain the connection with her. Without warning her breath sucked inwards in rage and sadness. He slammed the door of the shower open with the dead weight of his body, falling backward onto the tile. 

“Loneliness…” He said half-heartedly, looking up into the void of black above him, “So be it.”

He trudged slowly upwards. His body was numb from the connection, arms heavy with lack of feeling. He stretched a bathrobe over himself as she padded out of the bathroom to the doorframe of his bedroom. Soft light danced on his face from the fireplace, crackling on the far wall. He sank to the floor, staring at the imposing bed in the center of the windowless stone room. Its sheets were cold and stiffly made up with unfulfilled promises of comfort. There was a tall chest by the fire filled with his clothes but besides that, it was a Spartan place. The only things that brightened it up were the wall hanging that covered the room. They were of the tales of the Ancient Sith Empire- before the Jedi- before the Empire- before the First Order. When he looked at them stoic, proud, ancient words drifted across his mind: the ruins of palaces, the shattering of gods, the dead and snarled roots from which the Vader had sprung, from which he had sprung. 

Slowly he rose, wandering over to the walls. Methodically he examined the tapestries, stroking the tantalizingly delicate stitches. Suddenly, he plucked a loose seam out. He held the up the silk string to his eyes. “So fragile…” He hummed to himself, looking back to the tapestry. He looked at how finely the figures in the tapestry were shaped, and how powerfully they were depicted. Their fury and strength was undeniable, and yet they had failed- like how he was failing. A scowl formed on his face. 

He ripped the tapestry off of the wall. Hunger and dissatisfaction ingulfed him, as he hurled it into the fire and watched it burn. His head rang with the sounds of chaos as he gripped his temples. He curled into a ball of black hair and shivers before the fire. If only he could uproot it from his soul! It was hard to know how such evil lurked within him, grown with the muscle and bone. He whimpered, vainly trying to block out the visions of his family and of her. 

\-------------------------------

Phasma marched down the dim corridor. The gentle clinking of her silver armor traveled down the inner capillaries of the court, echoing through the sleeping beast. Her tall body swiftly passed through the shadows. Her quick movements and sparkling glinted with authority. The dark hall twisted before her into a circular mausoleum like room, at which three stairways forked from. A statue of a nightsister priestess was fixated in the middle, somber and closed-eyed. It had just been listening for eons since it was wrought out of stone. In the quiet hallways, the abandoned statues always looked mysterious.

She trooped by it and went up the stairway to her right. She stopped at a small landing and pressed through the door. She came out into a darkened outer sitting room filled with red Imperial guards. With a wave of her hand, she passed them, sauntering smoothly through the sofas and towards a heavily carved wooden door. She knocked strongly. 

“My Lord.” Broke her dry voice through her helmet. There was a couple of seconds of blank silence. She grumbled, “Never bothers to acknowledge me…” With that, she pushed her head through. 

“My Lord!” She exclaimed seeing him crumpled on the floor. 

Kylo peered up at her, a deathly shade of pale.

“Leave.” He roared. 

Phasma recoiled in fear at his obvious insanity, and out the corner of her eye, she saw the precious tapestry burning in the fireplace. Quietly she left the room, closing the door with her back. 

She let a few moments of silence pass as she let out her breath. Her head spun. “He is mad…” Phasma murmured to herself, a growing fear and sympathy for the dark, unpredictable lord flickered insider for a moment- but it was only a moment. She much too sensible, and much too loyal. Her feet carried her rapidly out of the room, and she went back down into the corridors.

The dimly lit, the stone passages were a maze. She went down more and more stairs, dropping through layers of time and architecture. The air became staler, clouded with dust, and the pathways got darker the more she went down till it was nearly pitch black. With caution, she eased down another flight of stairs, and then the clouds parted. Her eyes were dazzled with icy light. Her eyes adjusted to the spotlight strength skylights to see the deepest level of the temple, the ancient catacombs. The moonbeam shafts illuminated the corridor as far as the eye could see, completely uncloaking it from the darkness.

Designed by the devotees of the temple, the shafts channeled and concentrated the light from the morning and the evening stars into the catacombs, using a system of mirrors and lenses. The lighting gave a serine, melancholy, gleam to the surroundings. Spectral sights filled her senses, as the dank dust swirled around her feet. The force hushed through the passageway. In such a place of death, the only fear was the ever-growing sensation of life. 

She paused at a small nook in the wall at which was built in an unusually high tech door. She knocked and in a second the door swung open, smooth like a wave of a bird’s wing. She straightened.

“It is my duty to report that…” She paused. “His Lordship is not fit anymore.”

And as swiftly the door closed as quickly as it opened. The storm rolled over the moon again, putting to rest the light.


End file.
